I would think you probably have the right idea. kmttg is routing data through the PC, so it has to go over the network to the PC then back out the network to the NAS, whereas the pyTivo running on the NAS does a direct transfer.

If you're processing stuff, only the final product should go on the NAS.

If TL;DR, ignore the next paragraph...
I have played around with the different profiles included but I need to tweak things a bit. The "hb_television" profile you suggested was great, but it was a little bit too big of a file to stream smoothly. Plus, I think the mkv file type doesn't play as well with the chromecast as an mp4 type. I get great quality from the "ff_iphone" profile, but the file is too big to stream smoothly. The "ff_ipod_low_res" profile streams smoothly, but the video quality is not as good as I would like.

Therefore, I am attempting to edit the "ff_ipod_low_res" profile a bit to get a better video quality and need help with what to tweak. In comparing the high and low res profiles, the differences are...

Quote:

Originally Posted by High Res

-s 640xHEIGHT -r 29.97 -b 1500k -maxrate 2000k

Quote:

Originally Posted by Low Res

-s 320xHEIGHT -r 29.97 -b 700k -maxrate 1000k

Do I just adjust all 3 factors a bit or is there one factor that makes more of an impact that others? I'd like to find a combination that produces the highest video quality that still has a file size low enough to stream smoothly.

If TL;DR, ignore the next paragraph...
I have played around with the different profiles included but I need to tweak things a bit. The "hb_television" profile you suggested was great, but it was a little bit too big of a file to stream smoothly. Plus, I think the mkv file type doesn't play as well with the chromecast as an mp4 type. I get great quality from the "ff_iphone" profile, but the file is too big to stream smoothly. The "ff_ipod_low_res" profile streams smoothly, but the video quality is not as good as I would like.

Therefore, I am attempting to edit the "ff_ipod_low_res" profile a bit to get a better video quality and need help with what to tweak. In comparing the high and low res profiles, the differences are...

Do I just adjust all 3 factors a bit or is there one factor that makes more of an impact that others? I'd like to find a combination that produces the highest video quality that still has a file size low enough to stream smoothly.

Philhu, your suggestion to go 480x1000x1250 produced a file of 242mb (in my 30 minute recording). This produced an acceptable video image but caused buffering a few times.

cherry ghost, your suggestion produced a file size of an incredible 87mb (for the same file), but the video was very pixelated.

If I could find a file size less than 200mb that had a passable video quality, I think we'll have it. I am going to experiment with some different combinations (480x600x800, 480x700x100, 320x700x1000, etc.) and see what happens.

Philhu, your suggestion to go 480x1000x1250 produced a file of 242mb (in my 30 minute recording). This produced an acceptable video image but caused buffering a few times.

cherry ghost, your suggestion produced a file size of an incredible 87mb (for the same file), but the video was very pixelated.

If I could find a file size less than 200mb that had a passable video quality, I think we'll have it. I am going to experiment with some different combinations (480x600x800, 480x700x100, 320x700x1000, etc.) and see what happens.

Try changing -crf 26 to -crf 22. If the picture is better but the file is too big, go up to 23, 24, 25.

Try changing -crf 26 to -crf 22. If the picture is better but the file is too big, go up to 23, 24, 25.

Thanks! I tried -crf 22 and that created a 127mb file. The picture quality was much better, along the line of SD quality. I am hoping for a little better quality picture, so I bumped it up down to 18. This looks pretty good, with a file size of 208mb. I think this will work (unless there is a different tweak that will make a better improvement then bumping to 18).

Did it occur to you that the problem with your chromecast is your wifi network not the size of your files? Chromecast should be able to stream full HD video without much difficulty and your files sizes are less than 1/10th of that.

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Did it occur to you that the problem with your chromecast is your wifi network not the size of your files? Chromecast should be able to stream full HD video without much difficulty and your files sizes are less than 1/10th of that.

Yes it had, but I'm not sure how I check that detail. I checked to see that I had full reception on my chromecast icon, and I have a brand new ac router in the next located not too far away. Any help would be appreciated!

ETA: Maybe it is as simple as adding a QOS rule to prioritize the chromecast IP?

Thanks! I tried -crf 22 and that created a 127mb file. The picture quality was much better, along the line of SD quality. I am hoping for a little better quality picture, so I bumped it up down to 18. This looks pretty good, with a file size of 208mb. I think this will work (unless there is a different tweak that will make a better improvement then bumping to 18).

There's a couple things you can tweak. Go through the link I provided earlier. I'd start by trying -preset faster and different values of -crf. The conversion time will increase as you go lower on the -preset scale.

Did it occur to you that the problem with your chromecast is your wifi network not the size of your files? Chromecast should be able to stream full HD video without much difficulty and your files sizes are less than 1/10th of that.

OK, I've started reading some Chromecast networking threads on XDA and looks like there is some research I need to do on this topic. An advantage to knocking down the file size was to obviously help with storage space, but it needs to be a quality I'll be happy with.

ETA: I probably need someone to critique my entire process to troubleshoot any bottlenecks I am creating for myself. I'll start a new thread for that.

OK, found my bottleneck. Or, at least one of them. I am using Localcast on my android phone to connect the file on my PC to the Chromecast. I was under the impression that Localcast just send Chromecast the link to the PC and then the PC conncected directly to the Chromecast. Turns out, that's not how it works. Localcast uses the phone as a bridge between the two. In other words, the video stream has to go from the PC up to the phone via wifi, then the phone sends it back to the wifi which then sends it out to the chromecast. Therefore, this process is creating 3 times the network traffic as streaming directly from the PC to the Chromecast. I need to find another option.

To update anyone that cares, I installed Plex Media Server on my PC and BubbleUPnP on my phone and this allows me to cast the file from the PC straight to the Chromecast, using much, much less bandwidth. I am now streaming full HD files with no problems. Now I just have to find the happy medium between video quality and file size. Thanks to all that helped!!

Is there ways to setup different file naming configurations for different auto transfers? I have a problem getting a single configuration to work for all my recordings.

For example, Dateline doesn't seem to have any usable metadata. Sometimes it has an episode title, but mostly it is a blank field. This causes problems for Plex Media Server. The only workaround I have found is to include the air date in the file-naming configuration, because evidently that is how the Dateline information is sorted. Unfortunately, if I add the air date to all my recordings, some of my other shows get messed up.

Obviously I can go in after the fact and manually rename the file, but I would like something automated.

One workaround I have tried is to not include the air date on the kmttg side but then use a program like Dropit to automatically rename just those Dateline files with the date created. Dropit can do this without any trouble, but I still have problems with this because sometimes the recording occurs on one day and the actual transfer and encoding take place on a different date (Dateline runs late at night...large file...etc.)

If I could set up the Dateline recordings to use the air date in its file name but set up the other recordings to use a different configuration, that would be the best.

ETA: OK, looks like the metadata that kmttg downloads to the PC has data for "original air date". Is there some way I can automatically get that data off the .txt file and into the kmttg title? When I chose "original air date" from the configuration in kmttg it just uses the recording date.

I have some shows (Breaking Bad) which I had archived to my PC using Tivo Desktop. I am trying to reload them back to my TiVo Series 4 to watch, but the uploads are failing or only adding partial shows. I'd like to try to upload using kmttg (which I use pretty much exclusively, now). But I'm a bit lost how to do so. Can this be done?

I'd like to try to upload using kmttg (which I use pretty much exclusively, now). But I'm a bit lost how to do so. Can this be done?

No. KMTTG only does TiVo -> PC. If you want an alternative to TiVo Desktop for PC -> TiVo, try pyTivo. (It's what the author of KMTTG uses.)

However, I wouldn't bet on any alternative transfer method helping you out in your situation. Most likely, the files are corrupt (or at least, the TiVo thinks so).

One thing you could try with pyTivo, though, is to force the recordings to be reencoded while transferred. This should smooth out some errors, if the errors aren't bad enough to prevent playback on the PC (the TiVo is more picky). You can add a metadata file -- make it default.txt -- to the folder with the recordings, with these contents:

Code:

Override_vCodec: foo
Override_aCodec: bar

Offhand, I'm not completely sure if that will work with .TiVo files; you might have to manually decrypt them first.

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